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A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

After the success of Star Trek: First Contact, the producers surprisingly decided to change a winning formula for the following film in the series, 1998's Insurrection.  The movie sees a controversial Starfleet initiative to move a community of people off a planet in order to exploit its resources being challenged by Captain Picard and his crew, all happening at the same time as he falls in love.  It's an engaging and entertaining film which doesn't take itself too seriously and it works very well.  Jerry Goldsmith was hired to score his fourth Star Trek movie and, as ever, he provided an intriguing score, though it's markedly different from his previous three.

The composer elected to extent his new streamlined approach to action music developed in US Marshals into the 24th century with an action theme very closely related to that of Goldsmith's previous score, electronics playing a larger-than-usual part and orchestration being deliberately bare; tracks such as "In Custody", "Not Functioning" and "The Drones Attack" are considerably darker and more claustrophobic than Goldsmith penned for his previous outings on the franchise, but they work well enough and are never less than exciting.  As ever, Goldsmith wrote a new theme for the movie, a beautiful piece for harps and pizzicato strings which emphasises the idyllic locale in which the story takes place.  There are a couple of other themes too, notably a noble and moving piece heard in "New Sight", one of the highlight tracks.  This is the kind of gentle and romantic music that had never been heard in a Star Trek movie previously, and it is certainly good music, though is possibly the reason that the score got a slightly lukewarm reception from fans who were not expecting anything quite so light in a Star Trek score..

The album ends very well, with "No Threat" being an expansive and moving finale cue and "The Healing Process" is more action music followed by a nice summary of the romantic material from earlier in the score.  As usual, the end credits suite sees the new theme sandwiched by Goldsmith's original Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme; though nowhere near so striking as his other major themes for the series, Insurrection's is highly attractive and really quite endearing.  This was the first time that he used his now-infamous contoured brass for the end title theme, but these days it is striking only by how subtle the effect is here compared with later concert performances, when the theme seems to grind to a jarring halt before restarting.  (I've never understood why Goldsmith chose to introduce the effect.)

This is almost certainly the least interesting of Goldsmith's Star Trek scores, but that is only really by virtue of just how good the other ones are.  There is still an awful lot to enjoy here, including a handful of excellent new themes.  Recommended.

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Tracks

1. Ba'Ku Village (6:52)
2. In Custody (1:14)
3. Children's Story (1:47)
4. Not Functioning (1:45)
5. New Sight (5:44)
6. The Drones Attack (4:10)
7. The Riker Maneouver (3:09)
8. The Same Race (1:16)
9. No Threat (4:12)
10. The Healing Process (7:15)
11. End Credits (5:25)